Oi Blizzard, Outlaw fix? (proposal)

[Sinbad101]

The Outlaw Fix.
(Suggestions)

Ok, so Outlaw has some problems. And it’s not low damage or lack of consistency. It’s design. Just some basic things that hold it back from being a spec that all can enjoy and grow skilled at. In this thread I will describe those things and suggest ways to remedy them. Remember, the goal is to help Outlaw’s Play style FEEL better.
NOTICE: The changes proposed here are not to make outlaw op or PERFORM better. I couldn’t give a F-Ck if I’m bottom of the DPS charts as long as my spec FEELS great. That’s the purpose, to impact and improve Outlaw’s Play style and FEEL. Try not to be to close-minded and get your mind off the DPS numbers. I am not a dev and have no idea about balancing, these are Design changes and I’ve tried to keep most of them reasonable. If you do not play rogue or hate outlaw then you shouldn’t be on this thread mate. YES, if these changes were to occur then I would expect mass tuning and even NERFS to Outlaw’s Base Damage NUMBERS. Try to read the whole thing before replying.

“Quick fix”:

-Revert energy artifact trait nerfs.
-Decrease AR CD to 2.5 min (less energy starve)
-The RTB fix listed below & RtB energy = 0 (less punishing)
-SS energy -> 40 (less energy starve)
-PS energy -> 30 , Range-> 30 (in line with Shuriken toss)
-Prey on the weak: should include BTE
-Grappling hook: “Poste haste” 30% for 3 seconds (like shadwostep)
- Swordmaster: 10 -> 15% (make competitive)
-SnD: now adds 20% to SS (makes up for RtB loss)
-Blurred time: 15 -> 20%, provides shorter GCD on SS&PS (Impactful)
-Blunderbuss: Procs decrese CD of AR. 20sec (More exciting)
-Fortunes strikes: 1 energy per rank -> 2 (improves energy, mastery & scaling)
( These are just Quick things that can be done to help Outlaw out, but I’ve proposed more complex changes below )

Problem 1: Energy.

The problem here is that our most used ability Saber Slash costs half our base energy amount. This is a pain in the ass as it slows the spec down drastically. The devs thought that 50 energy was fine because there’s a CHANCE that it would give 2x the results. But 65% of the time, it doesn’t.
Proposed Change 1: - Saber slash energy down from 50 to 40
- Pistol shot energy down from 40 to 30, (range up to 30)
Reason: This is very self-explanatory. It would speed up the spec and make the rotation, Blade flurry on or not, feel smoother. 2-3 seconds between abilities isn’t fun. The range increase for PS is to add value and make it on par with Shuriken Toss.

Problem 2: RtB.

So the problem isn’t RtB. It’s that currently you NEED either 1 good Buff or 2 Buffs. So why not rebalance that?? It’s harder than you think... plus blizzard isn’t that smart... or at least they never show it otherwise it wouldn’t have the issue.
So the common rotation is to keep rerolling until you get those results. That can go on for 12 tries and cost a lot of time and resources. There needs to be some bad luck protection. But not too much to make the ability the one thing blizzard doesn’t want it to be, Predictable and Consistent. They like how you have to react. Sadist. This is why ideas like “Always 2 buffs” and “A loaded dice talent or perk that guarantees on your 3rd roll...ect” will never interest those bastards.
Proposed change 2: -RtB cost no energy
- Rolling 1 buff will grant you a 15% increased chance for 2 buffs on your NEXT ROLL for 20 seconds.
Reason: This is to take away the punishment of rerolling and to make the rotation smoother. It is ridiculous that such an RNG based element requires so much, CP and ENERGY. This makes rerolling a shitty 1 buff 9 times a punishment. SO the only way to fix it while still keeping the randomness blizzard loves is to increase the chance of 2 buffs up to 50.2% every time you get unlucky and need to reroll.
Roll the Bones is such a huge part of Outlaw’s play style. If it’s punishing most of the time then so is the play style. (For reference of how the odds are against us: The current chance for 1 buff is 60% and the chance for 2 is 35.2%)
Side Note: There have been many suggestions that suggest ways to guarantee 2 buffs but they often forget that Blizzard let it go live how it is, they just don’t know how to balance it, so they don’t want it to be predictable. The idea is to react, like a pirate)
( Honestly though, our biggest problem is our reliance on RtB, but that’s a NUMBERS issue for smarter folk who get paid to do it.)

Artifact Perk changes

Problem: Let’s be honest, besides Greed and maybe perks like Deception and Blade master, The Dreadblades are boring. Yeah they look great and the ability is cool, but the golden perks other than Greed and the single rank perks are just not exciting or IMPACTFUL.

Proposed Artifact Change 1: Blunderbuss.

All right so this trait is exciting when it happens but it doesn’t add anything to your rotation besides damage and it doesn’t affect much. A simple addition is all this GOLDEN TRAIT needs to give it some thought and make it very exciting and IMPACTFUL.
Change: - Blunderbuss Procs decrease the remaining CD of AR by 30 seconds.
Reason: The change would not only make Blunderbuss WAY more valuable but it would make you think about your rotation and those Free Pistol Shot Procs you just through away. “Oh I got a blunderbuss proc, but AR is 15 seconds away from being off Cool down” – Save that proc for as long as possible and then use it after AR is popped to get a jump start on that CD reduction. So a GOOD OUTLAW rogue who times his CDs and knows when to best use those blunderbuss procs would have AR a lot more often and therefor perform better.

Proposed Artifact Change 2: Blurred Time.

So this perk just...Doesn’t do enough. Hell, it’s usually the last golden trait people plan to go for. 15% is alright but nowhere near IMPACTUFL. Getting a GOLDEN TRAIT should make you feel more Powerful, not slightly faster. There’s potential here to improve this perk massively, even with the Run through change I listed above.
Change: -15% increased to 20% and AR now reduces the GCD of CP builders.
Reason: All right all right, yes this is a straight buff. But why? IF you have a mind for balance then you already know. Adrenaline Rush used to be stronger in WoD in that it not only made your character and energy regen faster, it allowed YOU to be faster and press buttons faster, which is always fun. I was sad to see this go, plus with the change to Ruthlessness it made the new Outlaw spec feel SLOWER.. Which is a bummer because we went from one of the fastest spec in the game to an average melee. That feeling of denying that pesky GCD and Sinister Striking our heart out was amazing. This slight change would give that feeling back and make AR feel good again.

Proposed Artifact change 4: Fortune Strikes.

It’s really weak and not very impactful which is a shame since our Mastery is the most interesting one among rogue specs.
Change: -Increase energy amount from 1 to 2, making it a max gain of 6 energy.
Reason: MAKE MASTERY GREAT AGAIN! No really, Outlaw’s best stat is Versa tm and that’s a real shame b/c we don’t scale all to well. An even bigger bummer since stacking Mastery and Haste makes the spec fell smoother but doesn’t give you a damage increase. Overall it’d be better if we gained more from mastery and this perk could get a buff to change that. I rather have a faster Outlaw than one that one hits slow and hard.

Proposed artifact change: Blade flurry and Hidden blade.

Ok this is going to be long so, First off, F-ck Hidden blade. No outlaw uses ambush in pvp and its not very useful for a long boss fight or even a trash pack. Its damage is terrible and it’s energy cost is gross compared to the openers of the other 2 specs.
Second, Blade flurry, oh how we love you.. But you’re boring and too easy. The legendary gloves do add some skill to using you but most people just turn you on till they get to a boss fight and then turn you off like a f-cking light switch. Not interesting and not IMPACTFUL.
Change: - Remove Hidden blade and replace it.
- NEW PERK!!!!- EXTRA Flurry: Activating blade flurry increases the damage of Saber Slash’s second strike by 100% for 20 seconds.
Reason: I already sated the reason for the removal of Hidden Blade but mainly it’s b/c it’s not IMPACTFUL at all and I needed a single rank place to put EXTRA Flurry.
Now the reason behind Extra Flurry is to make our AoE more thoughtful in the same way the Legendary Gloves for our spec do. So with the change you’d want to think about when you turn on blade flurry and make sure to turn it off so that you can get the bonus damage whenever you can.
Also! IT would make blade flurry valuable even in a single target situation due to moments when all you get from RtB is Jolly Rodger. Turn it on and keep Jolly Rodger for 20 seconds then reroll for a better buff and turn blade flurry off to get a quick Snapshot DPS. Adds thought and versatility to the ability.
It makes you think, “Do I need a flurry of blades?” The buff would only remain in effect as long as blade flurry is on; this is to prevent people from just enhancing their saber slashes whenever BF is available. One of my better ideas.

Major Talent Changes

WARNING!!! These are still a work in progress and remember that I am not a developer and have no idea how to balance numbers and other complex things. Some of the Changes are simple and others are drastic but I truly believe that with these changes, the outlaw talent tree would be an amazing source of choice, fun, and ways to change your PLAYSTYLE.



Replace Parley with MFD! It's useless and MFD isn't worthy of a 100 talent spot. Those should be Impactful.

Talent Changes 4: Tier 100

WARNNING!!! Some of the changes listed below may come across as far-fetched, and to those who don’t know that TUNING is a thing, perhaps OP. But ALL of these idea where formulated to not only make every choice competitive and desirable but to Fix and improve Outlaw’s current Play style and even provide a both FUN and Consistent option to replace RTB. So chill.

Slice and Dice

Change: SnD now additionally adds a “Jolly Rodger like” buff that increases Saber Slash’s chance to strike again by 20%. Costs 30 energy.
Spell Animation and Sound Change: Your character now Laughs on activation.
Reason: Balance. OK yes it sounds like a lot, hell even to much, but Let’s be honest “SnD sucks.” It’s boring and weaker than RtB, and has no Theme to it.
The change would give it something that is takes away, the benefits of RtB, albeit weaker, but consistent.
-The increased attack speed –> More energy from mastery (Buried treasure)
-The increased SS strike rate -> More CP generation and Second strikes (Jolly Rodger and Broadsides)
-And speed over power as you’ll have more strikes which means more chances to crit rather than just straight crit gain from Shark Infested Waters.
The SS buff would give you a max of an 70% chance to get 2 cp from your builder than normal and speed up the spec while also requiring more reaction to not waste CP. The change from power to speed would inspire more people to run a Mastery stacked SnD build. Especially with a maxed out new Fortune Strikes.
The addition of a situational parry increase would play into making the talent not only more interesting and fun, but also more “Swordsman” Themed. Plus with the addition of a Laugh to it’s activation it’ll even fit into the Pirate theme and FEEL more FUN as you “twirl your blades and laugh throughout combat.”
Like I said, Balance. To make this talent more interesting and more competitive with the others on its tier and actually make it a Solid option for those who HATE RtB. Options are nice. This would also tie into the change to Blade flurry and EXTRA Flurry, making SnD and its consistent SS buff a potential very powerful AoE talent option.

We have to Replace MFD, “Fortunes Exchange”

The Ability:
“Fortunes Exchange”: Empower a RANDOM single buff from RtB, Doubling It’s affect. When used 25% (15% in PvP) of the User’s health is Lost to Fate for every current RtB buff for the remainder of RtB. 3 min CD. Cost 50 energy.
EXPLANATION: DO I need to explain how IMPACTING this would be? To clarify, that empowerment goes to a SINGLE RANDOM Buff. Meaning that if you have 2-6 buffs like Shark Infested waters and Grand Melee, it could go to either but you won’t ever know. So it’s ideal to use when you have only 1 buff, whether that be a good buff or in desperate times, a sh-t buff. This changes things, once every 3 minutes getting 1 buff is a good thing, as long as you see that it’s in your advantage to keep it. This would separate the skilled Outlaw’s from the scrubs. It’ll be FUN.
Trade with fate or be smart and manipulate it to your advantage, you’re a Pirate. The health reduction based on your amount of buffs stops people from using it with 3-6 buffs and therefor making it OP, but it’s your choice.
(YES this is inspired by “Surrender to Madness”, It CAN and WILL sometimes kill you which = No DPS )
I do not hate RtB but I see minor improvement possibility.


Ok, Thank you and try to leave well-written opinions and Constructive Criticism below. Additions and ideas welcome.

- - - Updated - - -

Oi, anyone about to comment, make sure you read the post fully XD

Remember: Not intended to improve performance and that i'm not a dev.
Also! this gross a-s forum formating really doesn't do the post justice. XD

SI, I edited it a bit b/c people don't seem to be reading it. With these f--king changes there would be NERFS, duh. I don't want Outlaw DPS to be OP. You people need to learn to take your eyes of the damn DPS charts. :P
I will also state that my numbers listed wouldn't be like that and the changes would be balanced. Duh.


Still getting used to this forum's Layout so if that's a complaint, f-ck off. XD

[Pawstruck]

You've got some decent ideas here, but these are enormous buffs. Being that Outlaw is still a decent melee spec (I know, I know, the sky is falling!!!) I think most of these shouldn't be implemented, as they would make the spec imbalanced.

Oh, and by the way, I think Outlaw is perfectly fun to play.

[ymirsson]

I skimmed this horribly formatted mess only, but the main thing i read was "reduce energy cost, reduce CDs".

This won't make outlaw smooth, but a twitchfest for the carpal tunnel obsessed.

[ribthanwa]

I don't even need to point out while a lot of this is silly.

[FelPlague]

so you want outlaw to be EVEN FASTER
outlaw is a good spec right now, it doesent need to be stronger...

[shaunika123]

about 95% of this is retarded but at least 5% is somewhat reasonable

most of it is just a flat out buff, and most of the quality of life fixes fix the wrong thing or make it totally different.

the only thing you mentioned is buffing the combat potency trait and the mastery trait

plus yeah blunderbuss should be buffed but what you gave it is just broken

[Sinbad101]

SO the usual quick responses, dumb language, and lack of constructive criticism.

The primary goal of this post is to throw these ideas out there for the community to possibly talk about and discuss. If the rabble throws it around then it'll sooner or later hit a blue on the actual forums. So good or bad replies, it does it's job.

Try reading it again, or maybe actually read the whole thing and thinking before giving into that little voice that says "Comment"

[Soisoisoi]

Try reading it again, or maybe actually read the whole thing and thinking before giving into that little voice that says "Comment"[/B]

I tried, but the awful formatting is just painful. Use formatting to emphasise key points, not every other word.

Using such formatting options every other word really devalues the points you are trying to emphasise. And it just looks messy as fuck.

[ymirsson]

These are not the actual forums. And if all replies are good(for your cause), why the fuss?

[EntropyWarrior]

Some interesting ideas in here, would need to pick and choose which ones to take and tune some numbers but other than that I would love to see some of these changes. Making our gold artifact traits not complete trash would be a major step in the right direction if nothing else.

[Deleted]

Out of all of these, what I would personally like the most is for SS to cost 5-10 less energy, and for either of our other 2 golden traits to not be shit. Then I'd be perfectly happy with outlaw.

[Venziir]

Biggest issue with Outlaw seems to be surviving. Granted, my Rogue is only lvl 101, but no evasion, no combat readiness (or whatever it was called); my poor pirate feels damn squishy!

[Deleted]

Biggest issue with Outlaw seems to be surviving. Granted, my Rogue is only lvl 101, but no evasion, no combat readiness (or whatever it was called); my poor pirate feels damn squishy!

Place Riposte on your bars, use CoS, talent Feint?

[Xanatu]

Place Riposte on your bars, use CoS, talent Feint?

Is it worth replying to someone who is describing the "biggest issue" of a spec they've played for approximately 2 hours?

[calimariae]

so you want outlaw to be EVEN FASTER
outlaw is a good spec right now, it doesent need to be stronger...

It belongs at the bottom of warcraftlogs then?

[Nythiz]

SO the usual quick responses, dumb language, and lack of constructive criticism.

The primary goal of this post is to throw these ideas out there for the community to possibly talk about and discuss. If the rabble throws it around then it'll sooner or later hit a blue on the actual forums. So good or bad replies, it does it's job.

Try reading it again, or maybe actually read the whole thing and thinking before giving into that little voice that says "Comment"

No... just no.

Most of this is terrible.
Most of this is WAY over the top
A lot of the reasoning behind your suggested changes is either way off mark, or just silly

This is the second time in a week that you make this post, or something very similar to it.
The layout is not easy on the eye. Trying to emphasize something is good, but when you do it. EVERY. OTHER. SENTENCE. It kind of loses it's value.
On top of that you're insulting everyone who could disagree beforehand in your reasoning post, making any form of proper discussion completely irrelevant.

You're not keeping thing simple. You're trying to layer buff upon buff. And sure you try to make up for it with some token nerfs, but they hardly scratch the value of the buffs you give.
You keep shouting you don't care about damage; and yet this is also full of flat damage buffs that have little to no value to actual gameplay.

------------

Just to dissect some parts:

- Your rambling about AR.
Stop messing with AR. AR is not a energy sustain cooldown; it's a burst cooldown.
I mean are you even reading what you're typing?! Not only do you want a flat 20% cooldown reduction on AR. You want True Bearing as BASELINE for AR. You want Blunderbuss to decrease that by another 20 seconds per use. And on top of that all you also want AR traits to be orders of magnitudes stronger.
I mean these kind of things COMPLETELY discredit your entire post. If you do not see how this is not an issue, you seriously should refrain from using the forums.

- Energy cost reduction upon energy cost reduction upon Energy gain buffs.
Why not start with one. Why does it need to do ALL those things.

- You use childish reasons such as "Assassination/Subtlety has this, so why can't we?!?"
Giving a strong HoT to combat, just because you feel like it and excuse it with: "Listen, subtlety has envelopping shadows, so for that reason this wouldn't be OP for combat". I mean you're really making all your chidish flaming and namecalling (dunce / low IQ / idiots) seem rather hypocritical no ?
"Assassination's Kidney Shot benefits from PotW, so why shouldn't Between the Eyes?!". Because they're different specs, with different strengths and different setups.

- You're ridiculing traits for being horrible, when they were either never meant to have a massive impact or are simply misunderstood by you. e.g. Hidden Blade is fine as it is. It doesn't need to be great for PvP. It's a nice little thing for opening in short PvE fights (e.g. WQ) to give you that nice little bonus as you open up. Ambush -> Saber Slash -> Pistol Shot is a nice little opening combo that instantly give you 5 CP (6 with Quick Draw). Without this single trait you would often just get 3 CP. So that can have a pretty big impact, just not in PvP and not in long encounters.
Deal with it, not every trait is meant to be great in every situation. This is true for every single artifact weapon from every single class out there.

----------

There are some decent ideas in there if it weren't for the bloated mess around all of it.
- Energy reduction on Saber Slash. That alone would have a HUUUUUGE impact (the fact you try to stack more on top of that just proves how little you know about the class), and would have been a decent topic for debate.

- Small QoL improvements are nice, but you're pushing it with silly changes that would have massive impacts.
I would love for Grappling Hook to be baseline, and you could replace the talent with a mini sprint like effect after Grappling so that this particular tier has a bit more choice + Assa/Sub would have access to some more unrestricted mobility as well.

But then you come up with Tactical Retreat which has no semblance of the slightest bit of balance. This talent would make sprint have basically no cooldown. With your concept of SnD and all the other energy reduction ideas, you would have so many free pistol shots that you'd cut down 60 seconds in about 6 seconds. That's infinite sprint right there.
Again, it's things like that why so many people laugh at your silly ideas. Some of them aren't completely bad, but just the combination of them all make it ridiculous and very badly thought through.

So when you try this again, keep it simple and clean.
Try to stick with a few issues; where you propose one, perhaps two, elegant changes and tweaks. Don't try to come up with exotic new abilities, there is no point and most of them are generally really bad (not just from OP, but from most people).

[Deleted]

I skimmed this horribly formatted mess only, but the main thing i read was "reduce energy cost, reduce CDs".

This won't make outlaw smooth, but a twitchfest for the carpal tunnel obsessed.

Not even to mention, that energy regeneration is one of Outlaw's rendering factor for damage output. Not only would the dps at least go up by 30%; it would also make pistol shot and energy gaining buffs obsolete.

All in all, I don't even think, that Outlaw needs major changes. A few slight stat adjustments or buffs on scaling puts the class right on top.

And I don't understand, how people are complaining about the randomness of the spec. You knew it would be random, before you even picked it. Hell, RtB is the defining ability of Outlaw. If peeps don't like it, just switch the spec. Ass blood build has even similiar stat prios.

[Coldkil]

Ok, this thread is derailing fast and has not much of a purpose - if you want to suggest stuff at Blizzard, you need to head to official forums. Closing.